Educational Psychology

10. Planning instruction

questions like these are needed to plan instruction effectively. But the answers are not obvious simply by examining
statements of general educational goals.

National and state learning standards

Some (but not all) of the work of transforming such general purposes into more precise teaching goals and even
more precise objectives has been performed by broad US organizations that represent educators and other experts
about particular subjects or types of teaching (Riley, 2002). The groups have proposed national standards,
which are summaries of what students can reasonably be expected to learn at particular grade levels and in
particular subjects areas. In the United States, in addition, all state governments create state standards that serve
much the same purpose: they express what students in the state should (and hopefully can) learn at all grade levels
and in all subjects. Examples of organizations that provide national standards are listed in Table 27, and examples
of state standards are listed in Table 28 for one particular state, Ohio, in the area of language arts.

Table 27: Organizations with statements of US educational standards

Subject Organization

English and Language Arts Council of Teachers of English

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign

Languages

Mathematics National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Physical Education and Health National Association for Sport and Physical

Education

American Cancer Society

Science National Academies of Science

American Association for the Advancement of

Science

Social Studies National Council for the Social Studies

Center for Civic Education

National Council on Economic Education

National Geographic Society

National Center for History in the Schools

Technology International Society for Technology in Education

Other Specialized Standards Statements:

211